What has Attributed to Excess Drug Overdoses? Apparently not the Lockdowns.

Media reporting seems to avoid mentioning the lockdown’s causative role in increasing rates of substance abuse.

Note: I am going to try releasing at least 1 paid-only post a week. These will usually be smaller pieces, usually of me ranting about small things I see within the news that I (and possibly many of you) have issues with. This will go along with my attempts to release 2 paid-only science newsletters monthly, however this have proven to be a bit difficult since I believe some of the posts are too important to lock behind a paywall. Therefore, I’ll try to strike a middle ground and release smaller paid-only pieces along with getting out other science news letters. Also, note that these will occur with my typical free posts, so be on the lookout for those as well!

Last week the CDC released information that annual drug overdose deaths have topped 100,000.

Provisional data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate that there were an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 12-month period ending in April 2021, an increase of 28.5% from the 78,056 deaths during the same period the year before.

The new data documents that estimated overdose deaths from opioids increased to 75,673 in the 12-month period ending in April 2021, up from 56,064 the year before. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids (primarily fentanyl) and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine also increased in the 12-month period ending in April 2021. Cocaine deaths also increased, as did deaths from natural and semi-synthetic opioids (such as prescription pain medication).

By skimming a few news articles you would assume that somehow it’s the accessibility of opioids and fentanyl-tainted drugs may play the largest role, with the pandemic leading to greater increases in opioid prescriptions.

But why would there be a greater increase prescriptions? Why would more people turn to methamphetamine and cocaine at higher rates as well?

Several of these news outlets may point to the pandemic playing a role, and yet none make mention of the role lockdowns have played in attributing to this increase.

This was the claim made by The Great Barrington Declaration, warning that lockdowns will lead to an increase in harm across all avenues of medicine and health: